Imagine this. Thirty-Two of us have ran, walked, jumped, climbed, swung, splashed, cramped, moaned, cheered, froze, carried, sweat, and generally got super tired for over 10 miles..and here we are staring a newly heightened nearly lipless Mount Everest….almost the end of CFW’s Tough Mudder 2015….and they didn’t shy away this year, probably one of the most physically demanding Mudders I have faced (this was #4 for me) I looked around at all of our tired and muddied faces and saw hope, fear, happiness, grief, and probably one hundred other expressions…but I did not see surrender on anyone’s face. So…we took the wall, like we had the whole rest of the course….one at a time with tons of teamwork and camaraderie. I was probably 4th or 5th to go up, and after getting there helped another 5 or 6 up, and then I made my way down to watch and cheer on everyone else. And it was at that vantage point from the side of the wall that I spotted him again. I say again, because throughout the obstacles I had noticed this wily old veteran. He was wearing winter BDU’s and had been keeping pace for the most part with the 32 of us for the last hour or so of the race. He was every bit of 70 years old, and there was not an ounce of quit in this Gentleman’s face. His first attempt at the wall was his best, but he didn’t make it just missing the hands of the Mudd Ninjas that were there to help him up. On his head he had a 10x or more tough mudder band, which by itself is amazing, couple that with the will and determination to do this at his age, and I was in awe of him from the first time I saw him. Seeing him run, and move through this course had been a treat all day long, I was so happy to see him moving and smiling all day, so when he came up even shorter on his 2nd attempt at the wall I thought to myself….. if we all laid down and made a human ladder of sorts, I bet he could climb up and reach my guys up top. I knew we had to do it. So I touched him on his shoulder and asked. “Sir, if we all laid down would you crawl up to the top using our bodies as a ladder of sorts?” And he said absolutely….

What followed next left hardly a dry eye to anyone who witnessed it. My Ninjas supported me, the Veteran made it around…to get his weight on my back and shoulders…I pressed him toward my men at the top…they grabbed hold and never let go…he made it to the top…and the crowd rejoiced…..and there are not words to describe how I felt in that moment…..not a word…..but I know I will never forget it. And I am left wondering if that is the first time he has made it to the top of Everest…I’m thankful to my team for their help and absolute willingness to do something outside of the norm and I cannot wait to hit this course again next year..

here is a link to the video

such an awesome time!!!! and I couldn’t be more grateful to him for allowing us to share in this remarkable team building moment..

Do we dare to be better than we were yesterday? Do we wake up in the morning, thankful that our feet hit the floor, and face the day like we are going to kick the crud out of it, or do we stumble like zombies into our “daily” routine, regretting the drive to work, regretting the day in the cubicle, only to look forward to couching the night away in front of the TV. Is that what has become the best part of our day? I suppose that is certainly easier…that is certainly the path of least resistance. But, to what end? That route of movementless existence leaves us barely able to take care of ourselves in the end. It leaves us as dependent on our own children as they depended on us after their birth. It leaves us weak, tired, unhappy shadows of the human beings we once were. Lucky for me I am part of something. I am part of something else. This community….this Tribe….this incredibly close knit family is full to brim of something…something I believe is lacking in a lot of places in this world. This tribe we have is full of vision and hope and dogged determination. We know that we will not solve the problems caused by sitting, by sitting down to exercise. We know that human beings were meant to move. We were all meant to run, jump, climb, lift and throw things. We should hang by our arms, we should invert ourselves from time to time, we should move well, and have fun doing it. We know how it feels to work out with out moving, and we know how movement feels…we choose the latter. We know what consistent training is and how important it is. We know that once we put that consistency into practice how incredible it feels to run into a friend who just saw us 3 months ago, and see that their face and smile shows how impressed they are with how “different” we look, they don’t even need to tell us, though they do…. We eat that up for breakfast. (along with BACON) We know that choosing to move now will pay off later. We know that choosing real food over processed poison will lead us to not only leaner and more functional bodies but to feeling so much better. We remember how it felt the first time we crawled..we remember embarrassment, some of us remember shame….perhaps most importantly we remember nothing but encouragement from those around us, and how no matter the amount of defeat we might have felt, there was something that compelled us to come back…something that dug deep into us and screamed “I can do this, I am capable.” At times we couldn’t even allow ourselves to think that, but then, someone else would believe, and that was enough. We know what it is like to pour our heart and effort out amongst dozens of other people doing the same thing. We know the vulnerability that it takes and interestingly enough the power that it gives. We feel unstoppable at times and also nearly crippled. It really is poetic. We are broken in front of each other, and built up nearly every time we enter this “box” of ours. Part of us hates that, but mostly we love it. We almost always believe in ourselves, and in the moments that we doubt we find belief in others that helps drive us on toward our goals. We know how unique this is, which may be why we treasure it so much. We treasure it, but we do not guard it, we are open to anyone willing to put the effort in to be her. We do not care how fast you are, we do not care how strong you are….we care how hard you work, and how willing you are to care the same about us. WE DO NOT CHOOSE EASY. WE CHOOSE BETTER!!!

So,,,,I hop out of the car, in the middle of downtown, reach into the back of my trunk and pull an enormous box from it…a box which once held 48 four packs of Dove moisturizing unscented bars….I set it on the ground and stare at for a bit….ya think this will hold me? I ask, sort of to myself, and sort of to anyone at all who is passing by…I don’t get any answers. I look around, just a block away or so I see the “occupiers.” Wow. Is this what I have become. Honestly, am I no better than these people? Staring at them I’m forced to admit to myself that other than the obvious amount of attention they garner, they do look to be very serious about what they are doing. Perhaps as serious as a cat who hasn’t eaten in three days and will just not stop clawing your bedroom door. But then you are forced to think, if I don’t feed the cat what is he really going to do about it? I wonder if we have looked at them that way. Honestly, what are they really going to do about it? The answer to if I’m better than them or not weighs in my mind a bit and I settle on.. Well at least I have a job, after all I’m doing this is on my off day. The thought makes me smile a bit, and I reassure myself that yes indeed, the box will hold me up, well it should….

I stand up on the box and proceed to follow through with my plan….

Step one, take off my clothes…man I didn’t think it’d be so cold today. Of course I knew it was going to be cold that day….sort of the point,,shock value you know…perfectly normal for the 24th of December to be cold. Besides it’s much easier to attract attention to yourself in this kind of weather if you are standing around in just your knickers on top of a box, rather than fully clothed.

Step Two, start singing Man in the Mirror, crap, couldn’t I have picked a better song, maybe one that is a bit in my own key, that way I’m not getting looked at like one of those auditioners from American Idol that are just there to be on TV.. Although my intention there had absolutely nothing to do with changing myself, though the outcome might be a change for me as well, I thought the classic hit from old MJ would be a perfect tune to attract a crowd….and I was right

Step Three….just start talking….. I had never been more prepared in my whole life. I’d mapped out my whole speech….I would spin a tale of such intrigue, of such shocking truth that the audience would be captivated, moved to tears even. It would be full of suspense, heart break, betrayal, conspiracy,, and just when they thought the worst had happened the third act would push them to the point of giving up…and then the answer……and at last I’d offer them HOPE. They would find such purpose in my talk, such inspiration that they would go through a change right then. Right at that moment they would alter themselves and their own family trees for generations to come. I would be amazing…..

It will be amazing…..

I was so ready. Nearly sure that here right now at this very moment is what the better part of my life had been preparing me for. I wasn’t cold, I wasn’t nervous, I was filled with the need to share..and give everything of myself to these 60 or 70 onlookers…..

and then I saw her……

Front Row, about my 10 oclock (just to my front left for those of you not acquainted with those directions)…she was bursting at the seams pregnant, it seemed she held just about all her impossibly petite frame could hold, Jeez her due date has to be…right now.. In fact it was an amazing sight to behold, and she would have been equally as beautiful as the fact that she was pregnant had she not been tugging on a Marlboro…..

What a shame…

Just to her right side my eyes locked with a man at least twice my age…his clothes were tired, his eyes worn…..he’d seen a lot, been through a lot, those tired hands clutched a paper bag that could only have held the cheapest bottle of liquor that the store around the corner sold….

Damn…

Just then a voice turned my head…..it was a school age child, her voice shrill and peircing….she was standing with her mother and brother, he was roughly the same age. Mom was rather overweight..Huge..and it seemed she was doing the best to have her kids catch up and eventually surpass her. Her children each clutched a burger of some sort in one hand and a meal full of happiness box in the other….it was the box that was creating the argument as it appeared that bro was trying to relieve sis of her toy…her toy or the french fries….wow…

The authenticity of what I was about to do finally sank in.

What could I possibly say to change this? How could I possibly connect with these people…..how could I hold on to them long enough to pull them away from the commercials, the restaurants, the pizza, the wings, the beer, their cubicles? What was I going to say today that would really do any good at all? Are they really going to listen to some half crazed, freezing, (albeit charming), half-naked man on a soap box standing in front of the biggest toy store in the world on Christmas eve???? Really, isn’t health and fitness the farthest thing from chimney mom’s mind…hell she’s probably lucky to make rent since Dad’s not around anymore to help….Weren’t most of them going to go home tonight, order out, plop in front of the television, and eat, drink, and be Merry….after all tis the season…..for heart disease, cancer, obesity…..it would seem. How can I possibly change their minds????

I bowed my head in defeat, and took one foot down from the soap box…..I was finished….there was, in my mind, no longer anything I had to offer them. I had lost the game even before it started.

…then I saw him….

He was young, maybe 6, and nestled into his mother’s leg, but staring at me intently. I perhaps imagined tears welling in his eyes, perhaps not, either way, he was the moment I needed. In him I saw incredible things. I saw a world were people cared for each other first, and found that in doing so it was really caring for themselves. I saw a world where we didn’t settle for being lied to by the media, where we didn’t expect politicians to be half true with us. I saw a world where heart disease was as foreign to us as the bubonic plague…and damnit when you saw people at the mall, or Target, or in line for the bank…can you believe it they were happy, because they felt good, and lived healthy….amazing the things I saw in the young man’s eyes, once I made it past Spiderman and the Power Rangers…..and then there it was…..

HOPE………by god he wants me to talk…..

In that moment I wasn’t talking to a crowd of people any longer, I was speaking to him. As far as I was concerned this little guy was going to be somebody important, and I was going to influence him right now…hell this little guy may even be president 40 years from now…how crazy of a thought is that…..

Rejuvenated I stood up on the soapbox, fully prepared to address my congregation……

Deep breath, here goes…

” Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Robert Edwin Vest II, and wow do I have a story for you……”

There is a disconnect within me. I live inside, I sleep inside, I work inside…. but it is when I am “outside” In this crazy thing called nature that I feel most alive. It is humorous to me that we separate the two in our culture. There is here, our city, town, village, and then over there is the woods, nature. I can not speak for everyone but I know when I move, crawl, run, jump through the wilderness I feel incredible….I feel full of life….I feel bulletproof, until I trip and bust my knee, and then I pop up as fast as capable and I am off again. I will admit to having hibernated for much of the winter, and not getting out to satisfy my insatiable thirst for the outdoors, but I have been waiting for a day like today for literally months. I will take advantage of it. I will visit this strange world called “the woods” And as it has for the whole of my life it will welcome me with open arms and I will be saddened the moment I get in my car to head “home”

Please get outside time today….find a chance….steal a moment to let the sun recharge your body, mind and soul.

Field Training Officer Timothy Quinn Brenton, 39, of the Seattle Police Department, was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting while on duty on October 31, 2009. He is survived by his wife Lisa, his son Quinn, and daughter Kayliegh.

If ever there were a hero WOD that was tailored to fit our box…it was this one. This is the 2nd Time that Crossfit Williamsville has WODDED in Officer Brenton’s Honor. Our heart goes out to his loved ones. It was a spectacular Saturday!!!